--- title: Immigration: Donald Trump Travel Ban Faces Legal Test description: The fate of President Trump's executive order temporarily banning refugees and travelers from 7 majority-Muslim countries is up for grabs canonical: https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-06T13:22:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:41.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump's Immigration Ban Faces a Major Legal Test og:description: Here's what's next for Trump's executive order in court og:url: https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10d8dc9d9ee70752/6988b8f6cf40a86e27c465bf/donald-trump1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-TRUMP og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump's Immigration Ban Faces a Major Legal Test twitter:description: Here's what's next for Trump's executive order in court twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10d8dc9d9ee70752/6988b8f6cf40a86e27c465bf/donald-trump1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump's Immigration Ban Faces a Major Legal Test > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Travelers Arrive in the U.S. to Hugs and Tears After the Lifting of Trump's Immigration Ban [Watch (HLS stream): Travelers Arrive in the U.S. to Hugs and Tears After the Lifting of Trump's Immigration Ban](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KmRN6Doq.m3u8) (0:41)  _Published 2017-02-06. Travelers from the seven predominantly Muslim countries targeted by President Donald Trump enjoyed tearful reunions with loved ones in the U.S. on Sunday after a federal judge swept the ban aside._ by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Feb 6, 2017 1:22 PM UTC  Trump arrives at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida to visit the US Central Command and Specials Operations Command on Feb. 6, 2017. Trump arrives at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida to visit the US Central Command and Specials Operations Command on Feb. 6, 2017. Mandel Ngan—AFP/Getty Images by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Feb 6, 2017 1:22 PM UTC The fate of [President Donald Trump](http://time.com/4660850/trump-white-house-travel-ban-judiciary-immigration/)‘s controversial executive order temporarily banning refugees and travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries is up for grabs on Monday, as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will soon decide whether the order should be reinstated. Bringing the order back would “unleash chaos again,” attorneys from the states of Washington and Minnesota, which filed suit against the order, said in a Monday morning filing, according to [ABC News](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/white-house-expresses-confidence-travel-ban-restored-45295509). “Defendants now ask this Court to unleash chaos again by staying the district court order. The Court should decline,” the states’ attorneys said. The Department of Justice is expected to respond with their own filing defending the order on Monday afternoon. The court will also weigh briefs from former U.S. officials and dozens of the nation’s leading technology firms, which take aim at Trump’s order. Former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and others filed a brief in favor of blocking the ban, according to the [Washington _Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/06/kerry-panetta-ex-cia-officials-tell-court-trump-order-will-endanger-troops-in-the-field/?utm%5Fterm=.10d0541c1f79). The officials say that though the U.S. faces real threats, those threats are not addressed by the Trump administration’s ban on travel from Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Somalia and Libya. Instead, the former officials argue, it “ultimately undermines the national security of the United States rather than making us safer.” “There is no national security purpose for a total bar on entry for aliens from the seven named countries,” the [brief reads](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/06/kerry-panetta-ex-cia-officials-tell-court-trump-order-will-endanger-troops-in-the-field/?utm%5Fterm=.10d0541c1f79). “Since September 11, 2001, not a single terrorist attack in the United States has been perpetrated by aliens from the country named in the Order.” Technology companies including Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft, as well as some non-tech companies, also filed a brief in the 9th Circuit, [Reuters](http://fortune.com/2017/02/06/trump-immigration-ban-apple-google-microsoft-facebook-twitter/) reports. The firms said the order represents a “significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years.” The tech companies, some of whose leaders have come out against the order in statements over the past week, added that “immigrants or their children founded more than 200 of the companies on the Fortune 500 list.” A week of confusion over the order, which at one point blocked legal permanent residents from entering the U.S., ended in a stunning federal court decision on Friday that placed the order on hold. Though federal judge James Robart did not rule on the order’s legality late last week, his order cleared the way for the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State to process entrants to the U.S. as they had before the order was put in place on Jan. 27. The White House took quick action, with attorneys calling for the immediate reinstatement of the order and the President taking to Twitter to mock the judge and blame him for any potential harm that is caused because the order was lifted. Now, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — one of the most liberal appeals courts in the country — will rule on whether to revoke the judge’s restraining order. And it seems no matter what they decide, the president’s executive order banning travel could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/"},"headline":"President Trump's Immigration Ban Faces a Major Legal Test","datePublished":"2017-02-06T13:22:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:54:41.000Z","description":"Here's what's next for Trump's executive order in court","url":"https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/","keywords":["White House","Immigration","Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10d8dc9d9ee70752/6988b8f6cf40a86e27c465bf/donald-trump1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10d8dc9d9ee70752/6988b8f6cf40a86e27c465bf/donald-trump1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP","caption":"US-POLITICS-TRUMP","creditText":"Mandel Ngan—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/","name":"President Trump's Immigration Ban Faces a Major Legal Test"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Travelers Arrive in the U.S. to Hugs and Tears After the Lifting of Trump's Immigration Ban","description":"Travelers from the seven predominantly Muslim countries targeted by President Donald Trump enjoyed tearful reunions with loved ones in the U.S. on Sunday after a federal judge swept the ban aside.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/KmRN6Doq/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-02-06T17:25:22.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KmRN6Doq.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/","duration":"PT41S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4660929/trump-immigration-order-ban-court/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```